Is hyperinflation or currency collapse knocking the doors in a few months or few years? If no, why no? If yes, why yes? If yes then to pull the cash out from banking system into which different asset classes? Into stocks of companies having robust businesses, into mutual funds and ETFs, into commodities, into income generating real estate? Any ideas?

goodboy_mentor wrote:Is hyperinflation or currency collapse knocking the doors in a few months or few years? If no, why no?If yes, why yes? If yes then to pull the cash out from banking system into which different asset classes? Into stocks of companies having robust businesses, into mutual funds and ETFs, into commodities, into income generating real estate? Any ideas?

I am not an Economist, but, if things goes south....I fear Riote State,

In such scenario, I would not invest in the Stocks / M F / ETF, cos these will not be under my direct control ( immediate/exchangeable Liquidity) and could be restricted by manipulating Govt. Policy

Prime priority will be Hands at Arms, enough to protect my family & property ( this is not choice it can be Call of Time )

investment( & possible legal immigration, if things gets really bad) in other country will be my first choice

second will be Agriculture Food Products or even farming ( If I could protect it from getting Looted by hungry/desperate mass, as there will be more then 500 million unprevilleged )

As per my hypothesis this demonetization is about taking care of NPAs of banks due to default of repayment of debt by big borrowers. The ignorant common man is being forced to help take care of these NPAs by locking their money in the banking system for at least six months. It may also cause inflation. The net gainers are going to be big borrowers in this exercise. The smokescreen is black money, counterfeiting, terrorism and digital economy. Then has anybody noticed the figure of 14.5 lakh crores of currency in circulation is fading away. It is being replaced by 15.5 lakh crores. Why? Greater the difference between the old currency that comes to banks and that was in circulation greater will be the dividend to government. This money can be used to fund populist schemes to win next elections or use for war or war like actions. If some one thinks war is unthinkable, he might be mistaken. I have already highlighted the possibility in another post here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24511&start=180#p244151

Another very reasonable analysis quoting below-

India & Pakistan: the Unthinkable

by Conn Hallinan

President-elect Donald Trump’s off the cuff, chaotic approach to foreign policy had at least one thing going for it, even though it was more the feel of a blind pig rooting for acorns than a thought out international initiative. In speaking with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Trump said he wanted “to address and find solutions to the county’s [Pakistan’s] problems.”

Whether Trump understands exactly how dangerous the current tensions between Pakistan and India are, or if anything will come from the Nov. 30 exchange between the two leaders, is anyone’s guess, but it is more than the Obama administration has done over the past eight years, in spite of a 2008 election promise to address the on-going crisis in Kashmir.

And right now that troubled land is the single most dangerous spot on the globe.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the disputed province in the past six decades and came within a hair’s breathe of a nuclear exchange in 1999. Both countries are on a crash program to produce nuclear weapons, and between them they have enough explosive power to not only kill more than 20 million of their own people, but to devastate the world’s ozone layer and throw the Northern Hemisphere into a nuclear winter with a catastrophic impact on agriculture worldwide.

According to studies done at Rutgers, the University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of California Los Angeles, if both countries detonated 100 Hiroshima size bombs, it would generate between 1 and 5 million tons of smoke that within 10 days would drive temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere down to levels too cold for wheat production in much of Canada and Russia. The resulting 10 percent drop in rainfall—particularly hard hit would be the Asian monsoon—would exhaust worldwide food supplies, leading to the starvation of up to 100 million plus people.

Aside from the food crisis, a nuclear war in South Asia would destroy between 25 to 70 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s ozone layer, resulting in a massive increase in dangerous ultraviolent radiation.

Lest anyone think that the chances of such a war are slight, consider two recent developments.

One, a decision by Pakistan to deploy low-yield tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons and to give permission for local commanders to decide when to use them.

In an interview with the German newspaper Deutsche Welle, Gregory Koblentz of the Council on Foreign Relations warned that if a “commander of a forward-deployed nuclear armed unit finds himself in a ‘use it or lose it’ situation and about to be overrun, he might decided to launch his weapons.”

Pakistan’s current Defense Minister, Muhammad Asif, told Geo TV, “If anyone steps on our soil and if anyone’s designs are a threat to our security, we will not hesitate to use those [nuclear] weapons for our defense.”

Every few years the Pentagon “war games” a clash between Pakistan and India over Kashmir: every game ends in a nuclear war.

The second dangerous development is the “Cold Start” strategy by India that would send Indian troops across the border to a depth of 30 kilometers in the advent of a terrorist attack like the 1999 Kargill incident in Kashmir, the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, or the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Since the Indian army is more than twice the size of Pakistan’s, there would be little that Pakistanis could do to stop such an invasion other than using battlefield nukes. India would then be faced with either accepting defeat or responding.

India does not currently have any tactical nukes, but only high yield strategic weapons—many aimed at China—whose primary value is to destroy cities. Hence a decision by a Pakistani commander to use a tactical warhead would almost surely lead to a strategic response by India, setting off a full-scale nuclear exchange and the nightmare that would follow in its wake.

With so much at stake, why is no one but a twitter-addicted foreign policy apprentice saying anything? What happened to President Obama’s follow through to his 2008 statement that the tensions over Kashmir “won’t be easy” to solve, but that doing so “is important”?

The initial strategy of pulling India into an alliance against China was dreamed up during the administration of George W. Bush, but it was Obama’s “Asia Pivot” that signed and sealed the deal. With it went a quid pro quo: if India would abandon its traditional neutrality, the Americans would turn a blind eye to Kashmir.

As a sweetener, the U.S. agreed to bypass the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement and allow India to buy uranium on the world market, something New Delhi had been banned from doing since it detonated a nuclear bomb in 1974 using fuel it had cribbed from U.S.-supplied nuclear reactors. In any case, because neither India nor Pakistan have signed the Agreement, both should be barred from buying uranium. In India’s case, the U.S. has waived that restriction.

The so-called 1-2-3 Agreement requires India to use any nuclear fuel it purchases in its civilian reactors, but frees it up to use its meager domestic supplies on its nuclear weapons program. India has since built two enormous nuclear production sites at Challakere and near Mysore, where, rumor has it, it is producing a hydrogen bomb. Both sites are off limits to international inspectors.

In 2008, when the Obama administration indicated it was interested in pursuing the 1-2-3 Agreement, then Pakistani Foreign minister Khurshid Kusuni warned that the deal would undermine the non-proliferation treaty and lead to a nuclear arms race in Asia. That is exactly what has come to pass. The only countries currently adding to their nuclear arsenals are Pakistan, India, China and North Korea.

While Pakistan is still frozen out of buying uranium on the world market, it has sufficient domestic supplies to fuel an accelerated program to raise its warhead production. Pakistan is estimated to have between 110 and 130 warheads and is projected to have 200 by 2020, surpassing Great Britain. India has between 110 and 120 nuclear weapons. Both countries have short, medium and long-range missiles, submarine ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, plus nuclear-capable aircraft that can target each other’s major urban areas.

One problem in the current crisis is that both countries are essentially talking past one another.

Pakistan does have legitimate security concerns. It has fought and lost three wars with India over Kashmir since 1947, and it is deeply paranoid about the size of the Indian army.

But India has been the victim of several major terrorist attacks that have Pakistan’s fingerprints all over them. The 1999 Kargill invasion lasted a month and killed hundreds of soldiers on both sides. Reportedly the Pakistanis were considering arming their missiles with nuclear warheads until the Clinton administration convinced them to stand down.

Pakistan’s military has long denied that it has any control over terrorist organizations based in Pakistan, but virtually all intelligence agencies agree that, with the exception of the country’s home-grown Taliban, that is not the case. The Pakistani army certainly knew about a recent attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that killed 19 soldiers.

In the past, India responded to such attacks with quiet counterattacks of its own, but this time around the right-wing nationalist government of Narendra Modi announced that the Indian military had crossed the border and killed more than 30 militants. It was the first time that India publically acknowledged a cross-border assault.

The Indian press has whipped up a nationalist fervor that has seen sports events between the two countries cancelled and a ban on using Pakistani actors in Indian films. The Pakistani press has been no less jingoistic.

In the meantime, the situation in Kashmir has gone from bad to worse. Early in the summer Indian security forces killed Buhan Wani, a popular leader of the Kashmir independence movement. Since then the province has essentially been paralyzed, with schools closed and massive demonstrations. Thousands of residents have been arrested, close to 100 killed, and hundreds of demonstrators wounded and blinded by the widespread use of birdshot by Indian security forces.

Indian rule in Kashmir has been singularly brutal. Between 50,000 and 80,000 people have died over the past six decades, and thousands of others have been “disappeared” by security forces. While in the past the Pakistani army aided the infiltration of terrorist groups to attack the Indian army, this time around the uprising is homegrown. Kashmiris are simply tired of military rule and a law which gives Indian security forces essentially carte blanc to terrorize the population.

Called the Special Powers Act—originally created in 1925 for the supression of Catholics in Northern Ireland, and widely used by the Israelis in the Occupied Territories—the law allows Indian authorities to arrest and imprison people without charge and gives immunity to Indian security forces.

As complex as the situation in Kashmir is, there are avenues to resolve it. A good start would be to suspend the Special Powers Act and send the Indian Army back to the barracks.

The crisis in Kashmir began when the Hindu ruler of the mostly Muslim region opted to join India when the countries were divided in 1947. At the time, the residents were promised that a UN-sponsored referendum would allow residents to choose India, Pakistan or independence. That referendum has never been held.

Certainly the current situation cannot continue. Kashmir has almost 12 million people and no army or security force—even one as large as India’s—can maintain a permanent occupation if the residents don’t want it. Instead of resorting to force, India should ratchet down its security forces and negotiate with Kashmiris for an interim increase in local autonomy.

But in the long run, the Kashmiris should have their referendum and India and Pakistan will have to accept the results.

What the world cannot afford is for the current tensions to spiral down into a military confrontation that could easily get out of hand. The U.S., through its aid to Pakistan—$860 million this year—has some leverage, but it cannot play a role if its ultimate goal is an alliance to contain China, a close ally of Pakistan.

Neither country would survive a nuclear war, and neither country should be spending its money on an arms race. Almost 30 percent of India’s population is below the poverty line, as are 22 percent of Pakistan’s. The $51 billion Indian defense budget and the $7 billion Pakistan spends could be put to far better use.

Fifty days after the government announced that these notes would cease to be legal tender, Reserve Bank of India feels that the reasons behind the sudden announcement cannot be made public.

The monetary policy regulator also refused to give any details about the time it will take to replenish the currency notes.

“The query is in the nature of seeking future date of an event which is not defined as information as per Section 2(f) of the RTI Act,” RBI said in response to an RTI query.

The Bankers’ Bank refused to disclose reasons behind the demonetisation of about Rs 20 lakh crore of currency in the country citing Section 8(1)(a) of the Right to Information Act.

The section states, “Information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence.”

Denying the information sought in the RTI application, the RBI did not give any reasons as to how exemption would apply in the given case as the decision was already taken and there was no way that disclosure of information would have fit in any of the reasons cited in section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act.

“The clause of public interest would apply where exemption clause applies on the information sought by an applicant. In the present case, the information sought does not attract any exemption clause,” former central information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi told PTI.

He said law is very clear that when a public authority rejects to disclose an information it must give clear reasons as to how the exemption clause would apply in the given case.

Recently, it had refused to allow access to minutes of meetings held to decide on the issue of demonetisation of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8.

Responding to an RTI application filed by activist Venkatesh Nayak, the Banker’s Bank refused to disclose the minutes of the crucial meetings of Central Board of Directors on the issue of demonetisation citing section 8(1)(a) of the transparency law.

Nayak said he will appeal against the decision, adding, while confidentiality prior to the making of the demonetisation decision is understandable, continued secrecy after the implementation of the decision is difficult to understand when crores of Indians are facing difficulties due to the shortage of cash in the economy.

He said the refusal to disclose the minutes of the board meeting where the decision was taken is perplexing to say the very least.

Former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi also underlined that RBI has created an in-house “disclosure policy” which is against the letter and spirit of the RTI Act.

Gandhi has also filed a complaint before Central Information Commission against RBI for adopting the policy.

Sharing the following with the readers of this forum so that they may apply their minds and reach their own conclusions -

Blacklisted British Firm De La Rue With Pakistani Links Given 10 Acre Land In India To Print Currency

As a result GreatGameIndia received an official notice from the advisory firm Brunswick on behalf of De La Rue regarding our published stories concerning the company. De La Rue made a startling disclosure that the firm “has received no notice nor are we aware that we are blacklisted in India”. De La Rue’s notice and the official GreatGameIndia response can be read here. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley himself has rejected the charges saying his ministry has no dealings with the British company.

However, contrary information is coming to light from different parts of the Govt establishment. While the Finance Ministry has rejected the claims stating clearly that it “has no dealing with the British company” officials from the PMO has indicated otherwise – that the ban was lifted and the companies were removed from the blacklist.

As reported by Vijaita Singh for The Hindu,

“These companies are in the business for 150 years; they will not hamper their trade by passing on information of one country to another. Some of these firms even print currency notes for smaller countries. After the investigations, it was found that the two firms had not compromised the security features and the ban was lifted,” said the (PMO) official.

We would like to remind our readers that it is because of such outsourcing in the past by Indian Govt that a fake currency economy flourished. At the root of the fake currency economy is a British company called De La Rue (advised by Rothschild and JP Morgan – the controlling families of the East India Company with whom the Indian Government deals to this day) and a host of other European companies. De La Rue has been printing our currency notes since before Independence. Sometime during 2009-10 it came to light that it was because of De La Rue that Pakistan was able to print fake Indian currency notes. It was a matter of National Security so De La Rue and other companies were blacklisted and banned by Home Ministry.

However it has come to light that these same companies who were banned and blacklisted because of their links with Pakistan are also involved in the printing of the new Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. Sources in the RBI have told India Today that around 16 million tonne of paper is being imported from the UK. That’s not all, RBI is even sourcing the specialized security thread used in new notes from centres across Italy, Ukraine and UK. The new note that you will have is not completely Indian made.[..........]

Disclosing this to The Quint, Shiv Sena MP Hemant Godse said the agreement was signed six months ago and a 10-acre plot for the proposed plant has been identified at the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) complex in Aurangabad. The currency printing plant will cost an estimated Rs 700 crore, Maharashtra government sources said.[..........]

What is not known to many Indians is that De la Rue is the same company whose owner Roberto Giori who controlled 90% of the world’s currency-printing business was on the hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 also known as IC 814. And it is believed that a ransom was paid by the Indian Government for the safe release of Roberto Giori. This same company after being blacklisted by Indian Government lost its most valuable customer – the Reserve Bank of India and almost went bankrupt. What is most intriguing is that De la Rue that almost went bankrupt after losing RBI contracts reported a whopping 33.33% rise in its shares in the last six months and was a huge mover the day after the announcement for demonetization was made.[..........]

The question is if these European companies were banned and blacklisted how could they be involved in printing new Indian currency notes? How could the same companies that were a serious concern and banned because they posed a threat to National Security suddenly be cleared of the blacklist and given contracts in the printing our currency notes again and allotted acres of land to setup a plant in the country?

These are the questions that the Government needs to answer and all opposition parties including concerned citizens of India need to demand. The Government should clear the air on this very critical issue.

Well, I am sure that below topic is not about black money, but may be the surveillance state for cash and online would be much appropriate. This article is from a Firstpost tech website. May be total surveillance on every individual will help trail where the stashed black money go

Privacy is dead: Stop whining and get some real work doneTo paraphrase a Trumpism about Streepism at my own peril, privacy is over-rated. Let’s take the surprisingly muted revelations by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) about Facebook, Instagram and Twitter selling private user data to Geofeedia, a company that specialises in social media monitoring products. That’s information about you and me, or people like you and me. That both companies no longer do it is a moot point. That they did, and felt that they could, is the first real issue. That it’s the same ACLU which hasn’t gone to town when it precisely does the same when sundry government agencies get nosy is the second real issue. And, it’s the venerable ACLU that we are talking about here, an organisation with such a deep rooted legacy of gut wrenching battles for civil liberties and individual rights that their credibility just cannot be questioned even for a moment.

Let’s get real and, may I politely suggest, stop whining and creating a froth. The moment you log into your device, and it doesn’t matter whether you are in offline or online mode, there is a cookie or its equivalent lurking somewhere in its entrails monitoring your every keystroke and swipe. The moment you get connected to the bandwidth highway – or what passes for it in India at 512 kbps – your data is uploaded to many servers. Once uploaded it passes and parses through several analytics tools, software systems, algorithms and people, yes humans, in order for the companies to understand consumer behavior: everything from what you are buying, browsing, burying to burrowing, bawling and bump fisting. Google does it. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram too. And every digital company worth its bits and bytes. Some do it silently and in a behind the scenes manner, others do it blatantly and openly. Uber now calls itself a Big Data company.

So let me reiterate once more.

There is no privacy. In fact every key stroke of mine that typed “There is no privacy” has been monitored by the time I finished the sentence. So, privacy is over-rated.Representative image.Big Brother is watching over you, always

Again, let’s get real. If companies do it with such finesse and sophistication, all in the name of serving the consumer the best digital experience, there is no reason in the worldly scheme of things to hold the governments back from doing the same with the ostensible purpose of delivering better services and governance to its citizens. In both cases, it’s bit like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. There is a thin dividing line between serving and self-serving. Companies and government can be both, as we all well know. The issue that when the government does it, somehow the hackles of various rights activists seem to be raised just a wee bit higher.

Ok, I was trying to be subtle, and I failed. They are raised like there is no tomorrow. It’s so because there is one reality that the activists just refuse to acknowledge. Monitoring, or electronic snooping depending on which side of the fence you find yourself in, is here to stay. Period. Some countries like the US, France, Germany and Russia have turned it into a Beethoven’s symphony, a fine art. Others like India, China and Brazil are following suit. Yet again, let me reiterate. There is no privacy. And this time a government agency would have monitored every single keystroke of mine that typed the sentence. So, privacy is over-rated. In fact, let me go overboard. Privacy is dead.

If privacy was the proverbial horse, and it has long bolted out of the stable, as it has, then is the battle a lost cause? This is where the activists, especially Indian activists, need to wake up and smell the coffee or whatever else they drink or inhale. It’s one thing to campaign, spike the adrenaline about rights and liberties and bring in larger democratic values. They are useful. But it’s like flogging a half-dead horse, pun unintended. Seen in one way, individual rights, collective liberties and the larger democratic framework are under threat from everything: from Abu Bakr Baghdadi, Climate Change to Donald Trump and shadowy Venture Capitalists.

Privacy of private and personal data is a specific issue that requires integrated thought processes comprising policy, legal and social and cultural engineering dimensions. Such an integrated process is required, more so, when a digital ecosystem is becoming ubiquitous and all pervasive. It requires activists to research, dive deep into issues, understand codes and algorithms and ways in which they intersect and interact with each other.

In short, it requires Indian activists to do the hard miles, work their way through complicated codes and issues and evolve policy solutions: something that they aren’t used to today. As a country, we need to move beyond a blanket opposition to monitoring, oversight and data parsing. It’s happening. It will happen. It will continue to happen. A good question to begin with is how do we regulate it rationally?

Does rationality really exist in any meaningful manner in the "framework" of the Indian State? Does rule of law and justice really exist? Once we have honest answers to these questions only then we may try to find answers to the question about "regulating" privacy.

On the occasion of Holi and as said by RBI, all limit on cash withdrawal has been lifted. Most of the ATM's in the city seem to be dry or with No Service displayed. There are 11 ATM's of various banks in my vicinity, and all of them to be non-operational.

Family and Friends have been calling each other over this long weekend for even petty cash like 15000-20000.

Demonitization has nothing to do with BJP UP win... PPL are just fed up.. Last time they voted Akhilesh Yadav due to his positive image knowing fully well his party is party of goons .. This time its BJP..ppl want end to gondaraj

Demonetization helped ruling party in many ways....Opposition has no money to spend on voters.Gullible Poor class is still under the illusion of achhe din,hoping to see 15 lakhs in their Jan-Dhan accounts . Middle class is happy thinking that the govt taught a lesson to Pakistan and to the rich. While Rich are unaffected because the black money is already invested in Gold /Real estate etc. Bhakts are busy in chanting NaMo raga. Banks are happy to have surplus funds to clear their books/NPAs. Big borrower are happy because they will get their loans restructured with lower rate /waiver of interest.. Central Govt is happy because RBI governer is their puppet & has no control nor understanding of the economics. No party can function without goondas. BJP imported & consecrated more than 175 armstrongs from other parties this time to ensure win in UP. So the question is, what difference remained in the "party with difference"?

Trajeev wrote:Demonetization helped ruling party in many ways....Opposition has no money to spend on voters.Gullible Poor class is still under the illusion of achhe din,hoping to see 15 lakhs in their Jan-Dhan accounts . Middle class is happy thinking that the govt taught a lesson to Pakistan and to the rich. While Rich are unaffected because the black money is already invested in Gold /Real estate etc. Bhakts are busy in chanting NaMo raga. Banks are happy to have surplus funds to clear their books/NPAs. Big borrower are happy because they will get their loans restructured with lower rate /waiver of interest.. Central Govt is happy because RBI governer is their puppet & has no control nor understanding of the economics. No party can function without goondas. BJP imported & consecrated more than 175 armstrongs from other parties this time to ensure win in UP. So the question is, what difference remained in the "party with difference"?

Yes you have hit the nail very accurately. And we also have Electronic Voting Machines that can be hacked to produce "desired results". Here is the video below that explains the exact mechanism of possible fraud -